I recently decided to celebrate the pagan festival of Lammas. It is traditional to offer libations to the gods and goddesses of the harvest in the form of home-made bread, cakes, biscuits or whatever you choose to provide.

This year I tried something completely new, and I baked some bread rolls. They were actually a huge success!

My First Attempt at Baking Bread

Not content with doing thing by halves, I flicked through two of my cookery books and found two recipes I wanted to try. The first was a simple method for making flour rolls. They looked nice and easy, so I bookmarked that one. Then I found a recipe for sweet potato and honey bread rolls. These looked far more suitable for Lammas, so I added them to my plan.

My flour rolls were surprisingly easy to make. I was very happy with the results. Here are some photos of my baking process:

Thick, gloopy mess

The sweet potato and honey rolls caused a little more stress. I ended up with a thick, gloopy mess that refused to mould into a ball of dough.

Not one to be deterred, I thumped and kneaded, added more flour, cursed a lot, and finally produced this:

Baked to perfection

Both batches of rolls were very tasty and baked to perfection, although I have to admit I wasn’t so keen on the taste of the sweet potato and honey bread. I will definitely bake the flour rolls again sometime, but the whole experience left me feeling very grateful for the convenience of supermarkets and local bakers. I could not go through this process every day of the week, it takes far too much time and effort. Huge respect to you, bakers of the world!

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